


Made of Sticks

by Cristinuke



Series: Bang Bang [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Hospitals, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 07:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2460596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cristinuke/pseuds/Cristinuke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Phil woke up without Clint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Made of Sticks

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the wonderful [varjohaltija](http://archiveofourown.org/users/varjohaltija)

Phil woke up slowly, and the first thing he noticed was the deep ache in his chest and back.

He took his time in getting used to waking up, mentally cataloguing everything about his surroundings. He knew he was in a hospital; the heart monitor's steady beeping was a dead give-away, coupled with the specific smell that was always associated with hospitals. Phil could feel the starch of the bed sheets covering him and the quiet murmur of nurses and doctors busying themselves outside of his room.

Finally, he decided to open his eyes, blinking against the soft overhead lights. He took in his small room, the bare, windowless walls and the way that shadows played across from him from the light bleeding in from the hallway.

The way the lights bounced back and forth seemed to jar some vague memories; smoke, and panic, and fear, and pain.

He looked to his right, and was surprised to see Nick, sitting cross legged in an armchair, staring back at him patiently.

Phil opened his mouth to speak, but nothing intelligible came out, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "Just gonna watch me sleep?" The ache in his chest stayed the same, neither going away, nor intensifying. Phil wondered what had happened.

Nick leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and rested his chin on his clasped hands. "Making sure you're still alive." He replied, voice soft in the dim room.

Phil nodded, the ache in his chest and back still making itself known. "Not dead yet, Nick." Phil closed his eyes, trying to relax back into the mattress, but couldn't quite find a comfortable position.

"You were dead." The flat statement made Phil open his eyes again and stare at Nick. Suddenly a flash of memories filtered through his hazy mind.

Loki. The helicarrier. The containment chamber. His chest.

Phil's hand automatically came up to pull at his dressing shirt. Phil looked down as the fabric was shifted to reveal a huge white bandage. "Fuck. I got impaled. What happened?"

Nick nodded grimly. "We won. And yes you did. What the fuck were you even thinking, going up against Loki like a goddamn rookie?"

"I was probably thinking that we needed to stop him. Something about him threatening our world, bringing in aliens, brainwashing people into doing-," Phil cut himself off.

Clint. Fuck.

A lump formed in his throat as he thought about how the last thing he'd known about Clint, was that he was compromised.

Phil let his shirt go and looked up at Nick who was watching him dispassionately. "What happened to him?" He tried not to let his emotions bleed through, but he knew that Nick saw through him anyway. He always could.

Nick took a breath and leaned back into his chair, adopting a much more relaxed pose. Non-threatening. "He's fine, Phil. Romanov knocked Loki's control out of him. Literally."

Phil let out a sigh of relief that he didn't know he'd been holding. Clint was alive. Clint was okay, Clint was-. Where _was_ Clint? He was always by Phil's side in the hospital whenever he got hurt, but he wasn't here now. Waking up to Nick by his side wasn't unusual. Waking up without Clint there should have set off warning bells in Phil's head.

"Where is he?" Nick shifted slightly, a tell that Phil was never going to reveal to him, that told him how Nick wasn't quite as relaxed as he was trying to portray.

"Phil, we needed this group of people to band together, you know that. They were never going to work if they didn't have something to avenge,- _you_ said that. They just needed that extra push to fight to-,"

"Nick, _where is he_?" Phil was getting agitated with not knowing, his heart monitor beeping angrily to reflect his heartbeat. Nick could see his increasing restlessness, and he put up his hands in show of peace.

"He doesn't know you're alive." The words stole Phil's breath away, and the ache in his chest seemed to expand into his lungs and around his heart, constricting him and making everything feel tighter.

"Where is he." Phil whispered again, needing to know.

Nick relented, "He's undercover, Phil. Mission is to infiltrate and observe for possible allies that are being held in Germany at the moment."

"That's not enough, tell me more." Nick's eyes narrowed at Phil at that, but Phil kept staring at him coolly.

"This is a highly classified mission." Phil refused to back down. Nick rolled his eyes, but he continued, "We've heard rumors about a group holding two individuals with certain… _abilities_. We need to know if we can turn them. Barton's working his way up through the ranks."

Phil nodded tightly at the information, trying to parse through it. His mind started taking off, creating wild plans for extraction that included sneaking into Germany, but Nick put a hand on Phil's forearm, stopping his thoughts in their tracks.

"You can't go after him."

"The hell I can't, Nick, he _needs_ to know!" Phil shrugged Nick's touch off, valiantly trying to ignore his voice of reason, effectively shutting up his own voices in his head.

"Phil. Calm down. You _can't_ go after him. Think about it." Phil shook his head, refusing to see reason, so Nick kept talking, "He chose this, Phil. He elected to go in for a long-term assignment, and he's crafted and established his cover already. He's deep undercover, no immediate back-up, no extraction plan if this goes south. If he finds out you're alive, he'll either abandon his post or become too distracted to do his job properly. You know this, you know him. Either way he'll destroy everything he's worked for. Do you really want that to be his legacy?"

"Enough, Nick. Don't you dare try and manipulate me like you do everyone else." Phil snapped, mind still reeling. He knew what Nick was saying was true, but he hated the patronizing tone.

"Then stop making me have to." Nick retorted, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

They fell into a tense silence, while Phil was processing everything a lot slower than he'd have liked.

Finally, he ended up wondering aloud, "He chose this? And you let him?" He knew he was going to hate the answer.

He hated that he was right.

"He needed it. He took your death…hard." Nick settled on a sympathetic expression and tone. "He needed the distraction. He needed to get over you."

Phil looked back at Nick. He knew that Nick was not being unkind. This was the way SHIELD worked, the way agents were handled. And Nick had a point about the mission. He couldn't contact Clint until it was over.

Clint was going hate him so much.

Phil fought against the sudden burn in his eyes. He was going to hold it together.

"You'll see him again, Phil." Nick assured Phil. "In the meantime, you need to recover. We went through a lot of work to keep you with us, Phil. Try not to get murdered by anymore gods again." Nick pushed up from his chair, standing up in an obvious sign of finishing the conversation.

Phil gave an involuntary chuckle at that. "I'll try not to, sir." His mouth felt tacky and dry. He made a mental note to call for a nurse to bring him some water.

He watched as Nick walked across the room to the door, but before he opened it, a niggling thought bubbled up in Phil's head, and he asked before he thought about it, "Where are we anyway?"

Nick slowly turned, letting his hand drop from where it was on the knob. "We're in Tahiti, Phil. You need to rest and recover, and then I'll talk to you about what I have planned for you. But for now, just relax. Maybe even try to enjoy yourself, for once. I hear it's a magical place."

With that, he gave Phil a nod, turned around and left Phil alone with his thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked! :)


End file.
